Golfer describes feeling that comes with hole-in-one

Published 7:00 pm, Tuesday, August 5, 2008

A perfectly struck ball with a high, majestic arc. It lands softly and rolls toward the hole, or takes a quick skip and disappears from sight.

The hole-in-one.

If it wasn’t so elusive, it wouldn’t be so sought after.

Last month, Pat Murphree lived the dream — for the second time.

On July 17, Murphree and playing partner Chuck Rod arrived at the 141-yard No. 17 hole at Lake Windcrest Golf Club in Magnolia.

Murphree, 57, pulled out his 8-iron and hit a perfect shot.

“I guess it would be like buying a lottery ticket,” he said. “I felt like I hit a small lottery, not monetarily but emotionally.”

The ball landed within five feet of the cup before it began a short journey.

“I savored every roll, it looked like it was going in,” Murphree said.

He thought so, of course, because he had come so close so many times before.

In 45 years of golfing, Murphree had seen countless balls roll agonizingly near — but then past — their ultimate destination. He had struck flag pins on multiple occasions, each time more sickening than the last, as ball after ball avoided the hole.

Murphree had, though, previously punched a winning ticket some 20-plus years ago, at the age of 33.

“The first time, I thought it’d be one of many,” he said. “I was still young and invincible. I thought that my golf game was in pretty good shape. I thought I was a good golfer back then. I got a little cocky and it took 20-25 years for the second one.”

Murphree’s two holes-in-one, though similar, were also very different.

“The second time was more mellow,” he said. “Ultimately my life goes on to more important things to take care of.”

Murphree, a manufacturer’s representative who’s been in industrial sales for 30 years, learned the game from his mother.

“She was a golfer and quite an athlete and she encouraged me to learn and I did,” he said. “It’s been a lot of fun.”

Murphree took up golf when he was 11, and played collegiately at Alabama College.

His first ace followed some years later, and he went searching for another. But a second never did come, and a gradual change in his thought process ensued.

“You quit thinking about it,” Murphree said. “You just play the hole the best you can. I no longer think about it. They just show up.”

It took many years and “an evolution of many rounds of golf” for Murphree to focus more on a good score than getting a hole-in-one, but it paid dividends that July day at Lake Windcrest.

Murphree recently played his first round at Lake Windcrest since the hole-in-one.

A cruel twist of irony that underscores golf’s mysteries followed — he double-bogeyed No. 17.